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Forrester: Tablet Sales Will Eclipse Laptop Sales by 2015 [STATS]

Forrester published a revised — and far more aggressive — U.S. tablet sales forecast Tuesday, estimating that tablet sales will total 195 million between 2010 and 2015. The firm also predicts the majority of these tablets will bear the Apple logo.

Forrester's projections are still considerably more conservative than forecasts recently published by eMarketer, which predicts that 81.3 million tablets will be sold in 2012 alone, up from 15.7 million this year, and Gartner, which estimates that 19.5 million tablets have been purchased this year and that sales will multiply to 54.8 million in 2011 and more than 208 million by 2014.

The numbers from Forrester are nevertheless impressive. The firm expects that tablet sales will grow from 10.3 million in 2010 to 44 million in 2015, eclipsing laptop sales by roughly 5 million units. Laptop sales will continue to grow from 26.4 million in 2010 to 38.9 million in 2015, however, while desktop PC sales will decline from 20.5 million in 2010 to 18.2 million in 2015.

Somewhat surprisingly, Forrester expects that netbook sales will continue to progress upward, albeit modestly, from 10.3 million in 2010 to 14.2 million in 2015. The report states that Forrester sees "continued consumer demand for low-priced notebooks like the ASUS Eee PC."

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